Of Mice and Mosquitoes

I am a Jersey Girl. Born, raised and...eaten! New Jersey is many things, but glamorous isn't one of them. Native New Jersians who dream of glamor dream of California or New York or Paris, not Atlantic City. So to try to glamorize Jersey as, "The Land of Many Anything", even mosquitoes, is completely against our no-bullshit nature. However, any person who has spent a single evening in The Garden State once the weather turns warm, will be happy to regale you of tales of the New Jersey state bird ~ The Mosquito. And that, y'all is no bullshit.

So, obviously, I was raised with 'em. I spent many, many, many a calamine-covered summer night ~after the street lights went on, cause when God was a little boy umm in prehistoric times ummm before electricity back then, (aka pre-internet) no kid would be caught dead inside during the summer before the street lights went on... and it would take both being dead and being caught to keep you there. In those hazy, far-away days there were two things you could be sure of once twilight hit (before it had anything to do with Edward), you'd see plenty of lightening bugs, and if you slowed down enough to catch 'em in your mayonnaise jar with the air-holes poked into the lid, you were going to get eaten alive by mosquitoes; so that you'd have to enjoy your lightening bugs while laying in your bed cause you'd be too anemic and weak to stand upright (ps. don't open the lid while laying in bed or they'll fall out and cover you and the bed and you'll freak out and scare your mother half to death ~ words of wisdom to live by, my friends, and a true story... ANYWAYSSS). I guess what I'm trying to say, y'all, is that I know mosquitoes.

OK, so fast forward 17 years, past all of California, where I was once, (let me say that again) Once attacked by mosquitoes and received 5 mini-bumps on my left leg that stopped itching in 5 minutes and were never heard from again... they probably thought I was gonna sue, or they got a ticket... whatever. (It was ONCE.)

As I was saying, fast forward past that blissfully mosquito-less existence to where I lost my fucking mind I decided to move to Texas... because I forgot all about mosquitoes... Had I remembered, there is no way, no how, not ever a snowball's chance in hell that I would have moved here. Hubby or not, I would not willingly sacrifice myself to the gods of slow-death-blood-suckers.

I got enough of that as a kid. All my life, I've been a favorite feast of nano-technology-vampires. I step outside, and they call out to one another, "Look Boys, a free prime rib buffet!" Bug spray on me, is like A-1 sauce to them; it just makes me tastier. I've become re-used to this. It's an itchy pain in the ass, but I'm (once again) used to it. I've been here three years now, and I can tell you that this is the worst year ever, Ever, EVER in my full-entire life. No joke, no exaggeration, I am in mosquito HELL. Holy Mary Mother of God, I have never been mosquito-bitten like I have this year, and people, keep two things in mind; first of all, I'm over 50 miles to the Gulf of Mexico, so we're not rocking a whole lot of water here in my little town of Bug-fuck... and secondly, It's. Only. June.

I'm screwed like a $2 whore.

But this year... they're sucking me so dry of my blood, that I'm as close to an albino as you can get without the pink eyes and hanging around with dwarfs looking for microfilm in cigarette packs, but I digress... They've adopted bold new nuclear mutant powered habits and tactics. They DIVE-BOMB us now. I'm not making this up y'all. The other night, it sounded like I was getting swarmed by bees and I swatted at them, calling for the outside light to get turned on because I just had to see what the hell kind of bee was terrorizing me, or anyone for that matter, in the deep cover of night. Lights come on and I see that they're not bees, but mother-effing mosquitoes... coming at me with all the force of a kamikaze pilot and these things are stinging not just biting. And the bites are not your garden variety bites ~ they're welts the size of dimes or bigger. OM-OM-OMG! So I race inside as fast as I can in my weakened state, but a few of the steroid-mosquitoes get caught in my jet-stream and follow me in.

So now they hang out in my bedroom lying in wait for me to fall asleep so they can feast on me uninterrupted, And I know this, because I've been waking up way before my eight hours scratching and itching and miserable. And my poor munchkin, has inherited Mommy's Yankee-Glow-in-the-Dark skin and he's finding out early just how torturous and plentiful mosquito bites can be. So, we try to kill the little *expletive deleted for severity and length* buggers, but after being unable to eradicate them from inside the house, I'm starting to think that they aren't just nuclear-mutant mosquitoes, but that they too, must be versed in the way of the Jedi.

I'm starting to think that they took lessons from Mister Jedi Mousy. Who, btw, has been in the cross-hairs of Hubby-Sith since he took over you're doing it wrong, woman! I'll get him. mousetrap duties. In fact, that's how I was lured to Austin Thursday night... we had to go get new mousetraps, cause the ones we had were 'total crap' since neither peanut butter nor cheese had managed to tempt the culinary tastes of Jedi Mouse. When we got back to the house, before taking right off again for Austin, hubby set ten, count 'em, TEN traps in and around our kitchen. He set them in such a way that Jedi Mouse would have to levitate to get past some of them. Then we left. The house was quiet and devoid of human existence for eight hours. It was a mouse's wet dream (minus the attempt to snap your neck part). No. Mouse. And now I know why, Jedi Mouse was busy recruiting mosquito minions and teaching them the Jedi mind trick.

After over a week of mouse-trapping in increasingly inventive and insidious methods, Hubby has renamed Mister Jedi Mousy...

His new name is Fucking Jedi.

And the Jedi is winning the war. Hubby is so defeated that he hasn't set traps for two nights. Or maybe he's just planning something huge to get the Jedi, and doesn't want to tell me in case I get captured by the Jedi-minion mosquitoes and I'm coerced into revealing the secrets locked in my brain... it could happen... I'm kinda mentally weak when I've lost inordinate amounts of blood and am itching like I fell asleep in a mixed patch of poison oak and poison ivy and want to take a wire tire-brush to my skin. I could crack. Better that Hubby-Sith plot his Jedi-Mouse-deathtrap on his own.

For Hubby is Texan, thereby making him immune to Jedi Mosquitoes. But with the Jedi Mouse the force is strong, it is. If this keeps up, the rebel forces may take the Death Star.